Tales From a Darkened Mirror
by MorganaLakes
Summary: A series-of-drabbles tribute to the character I named this account for, and at the same time an attempt to show what Kiasyd Sire and Childe might be discussing during the 50 years they spend together. XXI century: Samhain has passed, Winter approaches.
1. Of basic necessities in the 21st century

1. Of basic necessities in the 20th century.

The face looking out from the mirror at me - unblinking gaze, frown - can't be mistaken for human. Even if the gauntness is explained away by diet - though that would have to be a killer way to lose weight, - you don't get that luminescent white with any kind of cosmetics, and there are no black contact lenses that conceal the whites of the eye. And there are no age marks - not even one line.

I sigh miserably. There *has* to be another way of doing this. Like staying out of the spotlight, maybe. Or not interacting with humans outside of dark alleys and the Internet. Until I learn to conceal my nature.

"Come now." Roderick speaks up softly from his armchair in the corner. "Concealing one's true nature is not that hard. Remember: people like to be fooled, and sometimes it is for the best that they see not a lie, but an illusion."

"Easy for you to say!" I turn to my Sire only to find that ironic smile on his face. "You've a different method!"

"You know," He says thoughtfully, "I think I've figured out the reason you are in such a stupor relative to Obfuscate."

"Oh?" I am hopeful. Even though Obfuscate does not run naturally through our veins, it is a Discipline most Kiasyd know well, at least to its third manifestation. And it is one of the first Displines my Sire attempted to teach me. However, there was something distinctly wrong with me and this Discipline. Even though I could feel the power rushing through my veins when Roderick showed me, no matter how much I tried, I could not summon it myself. All of my occult training in life - which helped me so much with the other Disciplines - seemed to disappear when I dealt with this peculiar art.

"You are supposed to learn that which any civilized person knows. Your polite nature protests against your conscious choices." He suggests coolly.

"This is the twenty-first century, not the sixteenth." I retort. "Civilization is no longer measured by the ability to paint faces!"

"No, but like in the old days, your ability to survive is."

Of course, Roderick is absolutely right, and I am merely stalling. I look down at the bottles and little boxes that crowd with hostility before the mirror. Then I reach and pick up the smallest brush out of the five that are laid out before me. Then I turn back to the older Kiasyd again. "How much time do we have?"

"Two hours."

I shake my head. "I'm not sure I'll be able to produce anything convincing in two hours."

"Still, you are not one to pass up the opportunity to learn, are you?"

"Of course not, Sire." I answer with the utmost seriousness. "However, I am afraid that you shall learn more than I."

"Oh?"

"Of the boundaries of human and inhuman ineptitude and their true reach."

He waves a hand dismissively. "I have known since I was mortal that there are no such boundaries. Go on."

My fate dependent on my cosmetics. I never thought I'd sink this low.

An hour and a half later, Roderick - who had been reading some sort of fiction - looks up and says, "Looks like you really did not pick up *any* skill in this while you were alive, Morgana. You were a historian of art. How did you manage?"

"By the power of my wit alone." I grumble, erasing the tonal cream from my skin for the tenth time. My face looks like it was used as a palette. In essence, it was, but that's not the result I was aiming for. "I was a scholar, not an artist."

My Sire sighs and puts his book away. "This one time, I shall rescue you. But for the sake of our security, you shall spend each night at this under my guidance, until you learn."

"The horror." I say tiredly. "It may have gone easier if you had given me a few pointers *before* setting me to this vile task."

"Possibly, but it wouldn't have been half so interesting." He replies, as he sits down next to me. "Now, please relax. We don't have much time and I haven't practiced in about a hundred years." 


	2. Of travelling, avoiding webs, and

2. Of travelling, avoiding webs, and narrative casualties.

The lightbulb in the crummy basement suddenly flickers and goes out. We remain in the near-dark, the only lighting coming from the ground-height window, and that - from a street lamp.

Though I suppose I'm not complaining about this place being sheltered from light.

Roderick moves to the window and looks outside. Then turns back to me, bending as if he were rubber - the electric light on his face reflects with a neonish blue glow - and says calmly: "The power is out in the entire building."

"Great." I sigh, as I slump down to the floor. "But we're not relocating tonight, are we?"

"No." He answers, as he stretches back. "No, we're not."

The safe places don't always look safe. I've been in the apartments behind steel doors and pounds of bodyguard flesh, and they are generally not safe. Few bodyguards can help when something can materialize behind your back and rip your head off. After a year on the road - and a vampire on the road is a strange creature, surviving by the skin of her fangs - I've acquired a certain feel for safety. Tonight, safety is a damp brick basement in a rundown apartment house. Strange, but true enough.

Roderick finds some sort of table, trashed in a corner, a table with only three legs. Without hestitation, he breaks the legs off, and places the table down before us. I get out the sleeping bags from my backpack and lay them out on the floor, on different sides of the makeshift table. We don't feel cold, and these are mostly for getting dirty while we remain clean. My companion gets a flashlight out from his own backpack, and places it onto the table, creating a small lamp. Despite the wet basement chill, it looks somewhat liveable now.

"Homely." Roderick comments, and allows an impish grin.

The flashlight gives a small popping sound and goes out, and we groan synchronously. It's no use asking which of us did that: we wouldn't be able to tell anyway. Well, maybe if we spent the rest of the night at it: but we've certainly got better things to do.

Like figure out where, precisely, are we going to go next. And as we get comfortable, that is the question I ask Roderick.

He shrugs, then stretches out on his bedroll and closes his eyes. "I do not know that yet." His voice is rather thoughtful, and I know he's contemplating not possibility, but probability. "There is, right now, no real need to go anywhere. We might even stay here for a month or three."

I can't help but arch an eyebrow. "And the locals?"

He smirks softly. "I do think they will not be a problem. We might even introduce ourselves, leave the more learned locals wondering what died where and why they are seeing double."

I can't help but snicker softly. It is somewhat amusing to see young Kindred balk at us, only to get chewed out by their elders, who do not hestitate to get out of our way. The two of us in a flurry of probability are a strange sight, and most wisely decide they would have nothing to do with it. And I do not blame them. Even among the Kindred, we create an eerie presence about us: two tall, gangly figures who can leave no fingerprints and do not leave footprints in the snow.

It is a new feeling to me - the scent of fear upon creatures far older than me, at my sight. I try to be aware that it is Roderick's shadow, and yet it is difficult. They move out quickly, they almost run. Some attack.

Thus, should I be left alone, I would die within nights.

"For your thoughts?" Roderick offers me a cup of blood, stolen from a blood bank some few hours ago.

I take it, and drink up. The tast is salten and yet sweet. I am surprised that the taste is still as if anew each night. "I am thinking of life and death, and of fear."

"So what of life, and death, and fear?"

I would shrug and leave it at that, but for Roderick's inquisitive gaze. "Our light brushes with death. I'm... Not used to them."

My Sire leans against the wall, raises his head up to look a the ceiling. "You would mean that the brushes with death you have had were more, hm, conclusive?"

"You could say that. It's rather strange, feeling safe when encountering all of those... Kindred. They could wipe me off the face of the Earth if it were not for you. They would, too. I am no part of their games any longer: neither Camarilla nor Sabbat take that lightly. And yet, I know that they are safe. I do not understand how death lets its pray go so easily."

"If one is fated to be hanged, one shall not drown."

"I'm sorry, what?"

"Otherwise known as," Roderick suddenly grins at me. "Plot armor."

"You are not serious!" I put the cup down with more force than was necessary, and lick the spilled blood off my fingers.

"On the contrary, I am utterly serious." Roderick smiles, speaks in a light tone. But he speaks the truth: he is not merely teasing. "You are part-fae, after all, and the creatures are stories incarnate. They live in narrative casuality. So do we, at least in part."

"If that were entirely true, the world at large would be far different."

"Different how?"

I laugh. "More like Discworld, or something. But, seriously, Roderick? I don't understand."

"You did say that you were not a part of their games any longer. This is a half-truth. The games of Kindred take up their time and attention, as well as their power. When we appear, we threaten to upset the delicate balance they have been building for decades. So they do not upset it until we are an actual threat."

"From their reactions, we often seem like one. Then it would be logical to displace us as a preventative measure, would it not?"

"I would state my opinion on their reaction, however, I believe you are not sufficiently fluent in Italian to understand me yet... So it will have to suffice to say that, generally, involving oneself with passerbys is classified as a waste of resources already allocated."

"Was that an imitation of Camarilla Kindred?"

"Was it a good one?"

"Recognizable." I smile. "But you do not give them much credit. A wise ruler would have some resources allocated to deal with unknown threats. I daresay that the ruler of a city-state should have more than enough on hold to deal with two Kindred."

"Anyway," Roderick says, as he pours second portions. "When I am there, they do not. Somehow."

"So you mean to tell me," I sigh wearily. "That you really survived five hundred years on plot armor?"

"That, and the small matter of a number of skills. And, of course, acquaintances." He sighs. "Do understand, Morgana, that the world of Kindred is a tightly-wound web. I knew lady Needle from a hundred years ago, and once defended her before the Elders of Madrid for a mistake that was not truly hers, and she owed me. I knew herr Lindbergh from over four hundred years ago, and we did not wish to fight openly just yet. These two facts prevented much bloodshed between lady Needle's Pack and the Camarilla when things became dire. One makes many friends and enemies over the years, and while I have made enemies, here, in America, I am mostly surrounded by children. Children of friends may help."

"And the children of your enemies, if they are here?"

"More of a problem for you than for me. Which is why I beseech you to be careful."

"Ah."

Suddenly I am tired. Sunrise approaches...

"Tales unfold in a variety of manners." Roderick says, climbing into his sleeping bag.

I follow suit. "But fabulae are limited in number."

"The possible intersections of fabulae number far more."

"A wise literary critic once said that our tales mostly end in their middles."

"But wise Kindred may live more than one tale to its end. You already have done that once."

"But it was not the end..." I murmur weakly, as sunrise overtakes us, and I descend into the familiar world of nightmares that besieges me each day.

Sometimes stories do end. However, they always leave traces. And sometimes these traces are akin to scars. 


	3. Of rivals and of magic

3. Of rivals and of magic.

Several hours have passed since we departed from our meeting with the Tremere. And as we stand waiting for the midnight winter bus, we are both peculiarly quiet. Roderick is, no doubt, thinking over the result of this latest confrontation. His mind is on chess moves, and pieces of lore that the Tremere teased him with, and on whether he possibly gave away a bit much than he had bargained for, or maybe not...

My mind is also back at that meeting. Lindbergh, rival to my sire. They seem like they compete in everything, from lore, to chess, to... To neonates. Almost a year has passed since my Embrace, since I've last seen Lindbergh. I assumed he'd lose interest in me, that I could just be a figure in the background again, quietly listening to the conversations of two Elders. Not a prize, not an excuse for yet another competition. Not any longer.

And yet, even though there is neither need nor room for pretense now, he still kept interest. And it's not mere politesse, either - although I could so easily be wrong, as I have been wrong in the past. But pecuilarly, he was far more open than he'd ever been when I was human. It is as if my changed status gives him leeway, a kind of strange freedom that comes from knowing your boundaries.

It feels like Roderick knows those boundaries, too. When Roderick was temporarily called away by the locals - something of a synchronous emergency among the local fae - he did not hestitate to leave me with a Tremere to go where I could not yet travel. Why? How did he know I'd come to no harm? Had he made some kind of agreement?

With Lindbergh, we had merely talked, sitting there in the cold, wintry park, on a cold, frosted bench. About this and that, about unlife, about adjusting. He'd wanted to know how I fared in the grimmer parts of the Kindred world. Deaths, control issues. The Beast. Disciplines, yes. He asked how my progress was, whether I'd be able to stand on my own should emergencies happen. I said that I hoped so, yes, and that I was as good as most could afford to be at a mere one year in death. And that I rather hoped no emergencies would happen. He shrugged and said that unlife was just one great emergency. We remembered New York, and many, many other events, and he entertained me with pieces to a couple of puzzles, then, until Roderick returned. It was just like when I was human.

Or, at least, I don't remember anything that goes beyond that.

Had he placed a suggestion in my mind? What would I do unconsciously now? I am no longer protected by their bet, am I not fair game, should their rivalry come to a full-blown confrontation? Why had Roderick left me so nonchalantly?

A sudden touch startles me out of thought. "Is there something on your mind, Childe?" Roderick puts his arm around me, concerned, and whispers in my ear. I do not think that with my Irish-English heritage I will ever get used to the Italian's concept of personal space. But my Sire usually has his reasons.

"How did the fae meeting go?" I reply just as quietly. You never truly know which places have ears.

"The fae took care of their own, as usual. I watched, mostly, having been... Backup arbiter, so to speak. Do you feel that something remains of the situation?" With my Sire, I play Kassandra no longer. He is well aware that my visions ring true. And I am thankful for it.

"No, no. I am just... Anxious. Normal anxiety. Of other things."

"Pray tell?"

"Lindbergh. Tremere are masters of various arts. I am wondering if he'd played a trick on me."

"Any reason to wonder?" He does not sound much more concerned, and yet his hold on me tightens for a moment.

"Not really, except the fact that Kindred who do not take advantage of situations that present themselves do not live long, and our Tremere acquaintance is certainly resourceful. I am wondering how much of a resource am I."

He pauses for a moment, and then smiles a relaxed smile. "One to be used only in the most disconcerting of circumstances, Morgana."

"Why are you so sure?"

"Do you remember our talks on power and balance?"

"Yes?"

"We'd spent far too long building ours to allow a neonate to crash it. Any neonate. Does this explanation satisfy?"

"Somewhat. You have others?"

"Which discourse do you want me to take up?" He says jokingly. "I can do any of them, and give you reasons."

"The discourse of playing fields. Am I not still part of that?"

"No." He says with a certainty. "That game is over. We have other games now."

"So he will not be trying to turn me against you, if he requires? No more mind games and convincing?"

"Listen, Morgana." Roderick is suddenly tiredly-serious. "I do not care what you talk about with Lindbergh. For that matter, I know what you speak of, and care not for the details."

"Curious. And what do you think we talk about?"

"Mage matters. Even if I wanted to, I could not be part of them."

I regard him, and remember. "You said once that you do not take roles that you cannot play. What of that of the occultist?"

"Ah." He smiles suddenly. "I am that. I keep more occult knowledge than many in this world. I can call upon secrets that are better left untouched. I am that - secret-keeper and secret-finder. But I am not a magician, not someone who imposes his will upon the world. I race against it, sometimes, yes, but... No."

"A magician does not necessarily impose his will on the world."

"Indeed. And yet there is something between you and Lindbergh, something unspokenly different. A kinship, through magic. It's yours. I want no part of it, whatever form it takes. I have my own secrets to keep."

"As you wish." Roderick nods, lets me go, and looks away, back deep within his own mind as quickly as he had come out of his trance.

Magic. We did not talk about magic this time.

The Tremere have their own magic. Thaumaturgy. A Discipline as much as any, Lindbergh says. All vampires have Disciplines. They are raw power rushing through the blood. Kindred blood is power in itself, somehow. One pint of Kindred blood is about the equivalent of a human sacrifice, if Lindbergh is to be believed. Thaumaturgy is that power, controlled to a somewhat greater extent than most Kindred deal with.

And still it is not a replacement for something that was lost at my Embrace, something so tiny and precious, a kind of spark which lent me life - nay, was my life. It was something that was with me every time a ritual I'd done had been successful, every time my intuition spoke. Every time I felt like I was really alive. And yet it was silent before I died. And it is lost now.

It is something I do not talk about. Rather, I study the options available to me now. Thaumaturgy is not one of them - I'd forfeitted that one when I'd refused Lindbergh. He'd been very clear on what happens to those who attempt blood magic while outside of Clan Tremere. That was one of the chips on the scales of my choice.

Lindbergh did once say he, too, had studied the esoteric sciences before his Embrace, but he said nothing of his successes of failures in the field, and I did not ask more of him then.

And I certainly shan't now. 


End file.
